Meditation 6: The Things We’ve Handed Down

I’m exhausted and wondering how the hell bloggers do it. We’ve had such a long day here in Los Angeles. An orientation session where we got to know fellow participants on this Spring Break Service Trip; then a long drive out to California Lutheran University where we packed hundreds of meals for the young people we’ll be serving later this week at Safe Place for Youth (Cal Lutheran has become a hotbed of Humanism ever since MA native Evan Clark came out here, founded a Secular Student Alliance Chapter, got himself elected student govt. president of the whole school, and upon graduation inspired the very talented Rebecca Cardone, an SSA member, to also get elected student body president.); then dinner with some local Humanists who have years of experience in the entertainment and philanthropic communities in LA. They fed us delicious food and generously tutored us on the LA “scene” for some time. Tomorrow, we begin working with the LGBT homeless and in-crisis youth themselves, and I think we’re all nervously very eager to dive in.

After dinner tonight we watched a beautiful video about some of the best philanthropic work being done on behalf of needy children here in Los Angeles– really touching stories of people working very hard to make sure at-risk youth are given the health and educational opportunities they need to grow up healthy, or that if they do get into trouble, they have the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves, rather than just getting thrown away into jail or a brutal system. The theme song in the background of the video is today’s Meditation: “The Things We’ve Handed Down”, a song by Marc Cohn. It’s essentially a parenting song, and even has the hint of a bit of Woo in the first verse. But it also tells the story of why we do community service work, particularly with youth. We don’t know who these kids will go on to be. We have no idea what our impact on them will be. But we have so much hope for them. And we know we ourselves are made better, more whole, by the heartbreakingly humble attempt to offer them a little care, a little help, a little love.

Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, and is author of the New York Times Bestselling book, Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. A frequently quoted expert on Humanism and community for the nonreligious, Greg’s work has been widely discussed in the national and international media, including the New York Times, CNN, the Boston Globe, and on dozens of radio programs.

Y. A. Warren

I certainly would like for you to have more time to blog. I like what I see, so far.

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